Activities In Libraries

From CyclingWeekly: The first Yorkshire Bank Bike Library was established in December with the aim of giving everyone in the county access to a bike. Now, community groups, charities and not-for-profit businesses are being invited to make applications for funding to set up their own libraries. The public are asked to donate old or unwanted bikes at a number of deposit stations in the county.

More info here. Anyone have experience with bike libraries in the US or Canada? Would you want your county/municipality to have a bike library?

via PUB-LIB: SKYPE/ZOOM WITH A 3-TIME IDITAROD MUSHER AND HER IDITAROD LEAD DOG!

Karen Land, writer, oral historian, public speaker, and three-time participant in the 1,150-mile Iditarod Sled Dog Race across Alaska will be Skyping/Zooming with students across the globe this Winter/Spring 2015. E-mail [email protected] for more information and to set up a date! (the Iditarod starts March 7, 2015)

Are you a card carrying member? Then you can do more than just borrow books at three branches of the Brooklyn Public Library, you can borrow a car.

As a BPL member, you can join Zipcar now and get $25 in free driving.

We bow to the inventors of this whole sharing thing. The library. They got it way before the rest of us. Borrow it. Use it. Return it. Then it’s someone else’s turn. Genius.

You don’t need that book collecting dust on the shelf. So you let someone else use it. You don’t need a car in Brooklyn all the time, so why pay for it all time? With Zipcar, you share cars with the folks in your neighborhood. You reserve it when you need it and put it back when you’re done.

Via Medium, an exploration of the maker movement and what its future might be.

"There seems to be a misconception about what 3D printing does and does not enable. Does it allow us to delight a four-year-old by pulling a mini Darth Vader toy seemingly out of thin air? It does. But the object doesn’t materialize from nothing. A 3D printer consumes about 50 to 100 times more electrical energy than injection molding to make an item of the same weight. On top of that, the emissions from desktop 3D printers are similar to burning a cigarette or cooking on a gas or electric stove. And the material of choice for all this new stuff we’re clamoring to make is overwhelmingly plastic. In a sense, it’s a reverse environmental offset, counteracting recent legislation to reduce plastic use through grocery bag bans and packaging redesigns. While more people tote reuasable cloth bags to the supermarket, plastic is piling up in other domains, from TechShop to Target."

Books 2 Eat reminds us that the International Edible Book Festival is held annually "around April 1st". To our knowledge, the following countries have held this festival: Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, England, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxemburg, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, United States of America, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Sweden.
April 1st is the birthday of French gastronome Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826), famous for his book Physiologie du goût, a witty meditation on food. April fools' day is also the perfect day to eat your words and play with them as the "books" are consumed on the day of the event. This ephemeral global banquet, in which anyone can participate, is shared by all on the internet and allows everyone to preserve and discover unique bookish nourishments.

Check out this amazing video from the St. Paul MN Public Library about their Mobile Workplace program. Libraries have a long history of serving their communities by providing access to resources and information. When the St. Paul Public Library saw a growing need for computer and job search skills, it created a new way to bring its community the tools and access they were searching for. The program primarily caters to newcomers of the Somali, Hmong and Karen (Burmese) populations. Hat tip to Stephen Abram Stephen's Lighthouse.